This is the fourth time that a Federal or State agency has compiled a comprehensive review of Cape Wind. And like the previous three, the MMS DEIS verifies important public benefits of Cape Wind while finding negligible impacts from the array of arguments that the opposition group has thrown against this project for seven years.

Having abandoned many of their previous arguments, the opposition group has now focused their advertising and public relations campaign on the faulty claim that Cape Wind would greatly increase electricity prices.

Oil prices have quadrupled and natural gas prices have doubled since Cape Wind was proposed in 2001. Where will these prices be over the next 30 years? The key point is that Cape Wind will be able to bring value by offering long-term stable electricity pricing, in contrast to fossil-fueled generation sources, whose long-term prices must reflect the growing volatility of fossil fuels and the increasing environmental compliance costs.

The construction cost for all types of new power plants have also risen due to increasing commodity prices of steel, copper and other building costs. The difference is that new wind farms will operate on a free, clean fuel, while new fossil plants will operate on costly fuels that will continue to get more expensive in the future as global demand, including that from China and India, continues to grow.

When it comes to the DEIS, the opponents have yet again resorted to deliberate misrepresentation, as the statements cited about the economics of Cape Wind are not, as they claim, "in the Federal Report. " Instead, the referenced statements were confined to a "draft " MMS economic model used to compare the relative economics of alternative sites. Indeed, the MMS author acknowledged, after peer review, that "rigorous analysis of the revenue streams was not conducted " and that the resulting statements were therefore excluded from the DEIS because they could be "misleading. "

To no one's surprise, however, the opponents have ignored all requests to stop relying upon draft statements that have been disavowed by their author. In the interest of fairness, the opponents should be called to retract their misleading statements.

And remember the "south of Tuckernuck " deeper water site the opposition group has been touting as superior to Cape Wind? The MMS comparison found that site and the other alternative sites to be economically and environmentally inferior to Cape Wind.

As for the resulting impact to the public, The Massachusetts Energy Facilities Siting Board, in their 2005 decision to approve Cape Wind, made the following conclusion on the cost of electricity to consumers, after 33 months of deliberation: "The record shows that the wind farm will tend to reduce market clearing prices for electricity because it will ... displace power plants with higher marginal costs. The savings resulting from this displacement would accrue to electric customers, and are estimated to be $25 million per year for New England customers ".

The Siting Board also noted the savings estimate was conservative because it had been calculated when oil and natural gas prices were lower.

We pay the health care costs of polluted air, we pay tax dollars for keeping energy supplies flowing from the Persian Gulf, and we are just beginning to pay for global warming in the forms of increasing coastal erosion and higher property insurance premiums. While none of these costs are reflected in our electric bills, they are real costs and they will grow the longer we hold off from using sustainable energy sources, like wind, to provide for our energy needs.

Mark Rodgers of North Falmouth is communications director for Cape Wind.